Sawyer worked to keep the smile on his face open and easy. He could well imagine the surprise Doyle’s two daughters had felt in that Turtle Springs courthouse today, but that was nothing compared to what had happened to him. He hadn’t even let himself think about it yet, but apparently that was about to change.
“Meaning what?” he asked. “This property might have been historic, but it was also an eyesore and a heap. Everything I’ve done has only improved it.”
“Yes, and that’s great. Wonderful, actually. But it raises the value of the property, for one, and therefore the taxes. Then there’s the matter of who will be held responsible for the costs and the liability of the structure.” She held up her hand when he started to reply. “I’m not being argumentative. I didn’t even know this place existed a day ago. I’m only saying that since this has happened, I think we should all sit down, discuss it, and come to some kind of written agreement about who will be responsible for what. I’m just trying to be smart. For all of us.” She looked at Bailey, then back at him and Addie.
Addie stepped forward. “I’ve spoken with Bailey’s caseworker about transferring her guardianship from the foster family to me.” She looked at Bailey. “It will take some doing, and we still need to go get your things, but we’ll sort that all out, I promise.”
Bailey looked at the legal envelope and key in her hand, then back at Addie. She nodded, but said nothing.
Addie held up a hand when both Sunny and Sawyer started to speak at the same time. “As for the two of you, just hold on to your horses. Let this old woman have her say. As the only person who was actually married to the old scoundrel, and the one who knew him for more years of his life than anyone else, I think I can be considered the authority on what he might have been thinking when he put all this to paper.”
She dug her cane into the dirt floor and turned to Bailey. “I know your life thus far hasn’t likely been what any young person would hope for. I also know, if you’re like me, you want to know what’s what, no beating around the bush. What we all want is family. Whether it’s blood or someone who becomes your blood out of love and pure devotion.” She cast a look at Sawyer, then looked back at Bailey. “Well, from what I heard today, you’ve been bounced around your whole life and never got to have either of those things. I’ll leave your mama out of it, as I don’t know her, but D. Bart should be ashamed of himself for leaving your lot up to fate. That said, you’ve found your family now. You’re a Hartwell by blood, and you belong to Blue Hollow Falls because we take care of our own. I don’t know what you think about that, but to my mind, a forever home counts for a lot. I hope that means something to you, but you need to know it means everything to us.”
She didn’t wait for Bailey to respond, leaving her to think on that. Instead, she turned to Sunny next. “I know you don’t know me, or Sawyer, but let me assure you we are not out to do anything nefarious here. I want what’s best for Sawyer, yes, but not at the expense or to the detriment of D. Bart’s final wishes. Leave it to that man to make a muddle of things, but I can attest that though he had about as much stick-to-it-iveness as a bee does to a single flower, his heart was as big as the moon. Fortunately, so was his wallet. He’d want everyone to just get along, and his way of making that happen was to throw money at it. Or property. Or both. That’s how he took care of your mama, or tried to, and I’m only sorry he didn’t do more, or that I didn’t know about you earlier on, so I could have pushed him to do better. Maybe this was his way of making up for his faults. Not that it does—I’m just saying what I think was in his heart.”
She looked at Sawyer next. “Honey, I know you came back here to do right by what’s yours, right by your hometown, by all of us, trying to help everyone out. That has been what you’ve always done, for so many. If D. Bart showed his love with money and things, you have always shown yours by giving yourself over to doing what’s right, to making a difference. I couldn’t be more proud of you. By rights, this should be all yours. We both know that. It wouldn’t have seemed like any kind of gold mine to anyone else. Just the opposite. Certainly no one else would look at this heap and envision what you have, much less pour his own blood, sweat, and tears into making it a reality. Maybe the old man didn’t have faith that you’d come back home, by choice or by fate, so by giving the mill to all three of his own he made sure it would stay in the Hartwell family one way or the other. Maybe he grew sentimental in his old age. Or maybe he did it for me. Probably the latter. Old coot.”
“I came home to you, Addie Pearl,” Sawyer told her. “As far as I knew, Doyle had no idea where I was, or what I was doing.”
“He knew,” she said quietly. “He always knew where you were, or at least who you were working for.” Then she turned to the other two. “I can’t say what he knew about the two of you, or that he kept tabs. We’ll never know that, I don’t guess. But he hadn’t forgotten you, that’s clear enough to see now, and in true D. Bart style, I guess he was trying to do the right thing by you both by giving you something.” She let out a short chuckle. “Just like him to wait long enough that he could still have an excuse for not doing anything himself, in person, in ways that would truly matter. But that’s neither here nor there. He died like he lived, doing things his way, and only his way.”
She tucked her cane under her arm, and clapped her hands together so sharply, Bailey and Sunny started, and Sawyer’s gaze shifted more tightly to Addie. “So, here’s how it will be. This place is the only thing of D. Bart’s vast array of possessions, all the rest of which he divested along the way, that belonged to his family, his ancestors, dating all the way back to the beginning. Like it or not, you’re what’s left of that family. Despite what some might say, I won’t live forever. And though I’d like to believe that all three of you would come to care about this place, I might be old, but I’m not senile. And though I do believe in the Lord moving in mysterious ways, I don’t believe in fairy tales. So, bottom line, what’s important to me is that this place stay with at least one of you going forward. That the history of this place, this town, and what happens to it, continues to matter to someone who will do right by it.”
She looked at Sunny. “We already know Sawyer has taken on that mantle, so that takes care of that. If you want out, I will give you a fair market price for your share, as it stands right now, cash on hand. It’ll be a far sight more than it would have been worth if he’d kicked the bucket any earlier, that I can tell you.” She looked at Bailey. “You’re not old enough to decide now, so your share is yours until you’re of age. You can decide then what you want to do with whatever it’s become at that point. You’ll have to trust me to do the right thing with it until then. I have no cause to cheat you and I only want to do what’s right by you. Ask anyone you want and they’ll vouch for my word. And you can start with Sawyer, who knows better than anybody.”
She spared him a look then, and though she was a woman driven by her passions for any number of things, he didn’t think he’d ever seen her so serious . . . and maybe, underneath all that, a little scared. This was her legacy, too, after all, or would go on to be, when it was done.
She stamped her cane back on the floor again, gripping the knob as she held their gazes evenly with her own. “So, let’s keep this as simple as possible for all involved. We are family. You were his, and he was mine once upon a time. Now he’s gone, so I count you as mine. That’s all that matters.”
There was absolute silence in the room, save for the sound of the wind rustling through the open patches in the ceiling, and the sound of Big Stone Creek rushing over the tumble of boulders that stood just on the other side of the far wall.
Then Sunny cleared her throat, and took a step forward. “What if I don’t want to sell out my share? What happens then?”
Chapter Three
Sunny sat in her car with the engine running, looking at the mill, wondering what in the fresh hell had come over her.
She blamed Addie Pearl. The old woman had proposed a sol
ution that would have made this all so very easy—here’s your money, see ya later, bye. And Sunny would have taken her up on that offer. Happily. She wouldn’t have even dickered over the price. Heck, she might have even just signed her share over to Bailey, who was the only one of the three of them who appeared to really need financial support. Assuming the mill would be worth something someday, and not a burden to the poor kid.
Then Addie had to go and make that beautiful, impassioned speech about the value of family and how she was sticking by what she considered her family, her responsibility, her heritage, and Sunny was standing there, thinking about her mother, thinking about herself when she was Bailey’s age, and how hard she’d thought her life had been. Bailey’s had been so very much harder. None of Doyle’s three children had apparently had any kind of father, but she’d had her mama, and Sawyer had Addie. What did Bailey have? And they were sisters, for God’s sake. She had a freaking sister!
Sunny still hadn’t had the time or space to really and truly consider that, figure out what it meant to her, or how it even made her feel.
She also had a brother, apparently, although she couldn’t even go there yet. Not until she managed to get her head and the rest of her body to understand that they were related. Related, you hear?
Sawyer was . . . a lot. In all possible ways. He filled up the space he was in without even trying. He had that kind of natural magnetism and charisma that held every bit of her attention without even trying, and without her permission. She didn’t want to be drawn to him, but even standing inside that cavernous, gutted old mill, he’d made her feel . . . stifled. As if there suddenly wasn’t enough oxygen to breathe.
Simmer down, sister!
Emphasis on the sister. Yeah. She was trying. She was sitting in her car, not anywhere near him. Yet she still had the urge to loosen a few buttons, take a few deep breaths. It didn’t help that he was an apparent war hero who’d come back to single-handedly rescue his little mountain hometown.
Bottom line, she had no idea what she wanted. Or didn’t want. She only knew what she couldn’t want. And she was failing at that. Miserably.
All of this felt more than a little surreal. Where she was sitting, what she was contemplating. She felt a little like Alice, right after she’d taken that header down the rabbit hole. Sunny had had no idea what she’d expected when she’d left her nice, safe, predictable life in Old Town that morning, but it had most definitely not been anything like this.
She picked up the legal envelope she’d tossed on the passenger seat and slid the official papers out, the ones that provided proof—in case she doubted it—that her life had just gotten complicated. “Oh, Mama,” she murmured, as she read through the exact words that spelled out her inheritance. “Why didn’t you tell me about Doyle?”
She missed her mother. In ways big and small, light and dark, heavy and . . . well, heavier. Sunny missed her laughter, her dogged optimism, her endless flights of fancy, her companionship. She didn’t miss the work of taking care of Daisy Rose. The feeding, the bathing, the battles over medication, the weary-to-the-bone amount of time, energy, and just plain grit it took, or the toll it had taken on her mind, body, and spirit to do a job she’d been handling every single minute of every single day for as long as she could remember. Even eight months later, she was still quietly stunned as she discovered, almost daily, all the ways she now felt free. Jubilantly, joyously, utterly, overwhelmingly, and yes, guiltily free.
She’d always known that her life had been a lot of work; caring for Daisy Rose had been the cornerstone of every day of that life, from childhood on up. It was the reason she was still single, the reason she buried herself in the USBG greenhouses for far more hours than even her demanding job required. She’d been looking for solace, respite, maybe a teeny, tiny escape to rebuild and restore the energy she would need to get up and do it all over again the next day. Even if she had never let herself think about it that way.
Sunny had still been working her way through adolescence when she’d figured out that if she ever let herself think about her life, or her mother, like a millstone she’d been forced to carry, if she regretted the life she’d been handed, then the burden itself would have swallowed her whole.
No, she’d worked hard to be more like her mother in that regard, to look at the wonder of the world, embrace the joy, dig in the dirt, and celebrate life. And she had done that, too. Every single day.
She missed her mama. But she loved being free. Loved. At first, it had felt wrong, like a betrayal. Then she’d realized that if any one person in the whole wide world would want—no, demand—that Sunny embrace her newfound freedom and utterly revel in it, it would have been Daisy Rose Rainbow Love Garcia Goodwin. So . . . Sunny had. Or she’d certainly been making big inroads into doing so. She’d yet to really figure out what she wanted for herself now. What she wanted now that couldn’t have let herself want before. What was important to her? Would she date more? Though life with Daisy Rose would have terrified most mere mortal men, it wasn’t as if Sunny had lost the love of her life because of her caretaking role. She’d never met someone who’d meant enough to her that that had become an issue.
Was it because she hadn’t let herself fall in love? Had she subconsciously avoided becoming too deeply involved with anyone, because she knew the likely outcome?
She laughed then, and started stuffing the legal papers back in the envelope. “Yeah, then the first guy who really makes your girl parts sit up and pay attention turns out to be your half brother. Ha!” She shook her head, thinking—and not for the first time—that maybe it was like her co-worker and close friend Stevie had been telling her since shortly after Sunny had confided why she couldn’t hang out after work or do a girl’s weekend on the eastern shore. Stevie had told Sunny that if she couldn’t get more help with her mother than a daycare nurse to watch over her while Sunny worked, the least she should do was get herself a good therapist.
Sunny’s lips twisted in a dry smile as she fumbled with the pronged closure on the envelope. “And to think, Mama, I believed that after you passed on, the crazy part of my life was all behind me.”
A light rap on her car window made Sunny squeal and clamp the legal envelope to her chest, covering her now-galloping heart. She shifted around to find Seth Brogan and his long, manly man beard grinning down at her. She pushed the button to lower her window.
“Sorry,” he said, white teeth flashing, making his golden brown eyes dance. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No worries,” she told him, swallowing down the momentary surprise, then taking a short breath to settle her heart rate. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” He looked confused. “No, why? Did something happen?”
“You mean other than finding out I have two siblings and now own a chunk of a centuries-old silk mill?” She smiled. “No, that’s been quite enough already.”
“Two . . .” Seth trailed off, then looked over the top of her car toward the mill, then back at her. “So, the master sergeant is your big brother?” He hooted and the grin that had been open and friendly before took on a decidedly masculine gleam once again. “Well, hell, I might stand a chance then.”
“Stand a—?” Sunny broke off, shook her head. She couldn’t even go there at the moment. “I’m sorry, what was it you wanted?”
“I got halfway home and realized I’d left some tools back here that I’ll need for a little project I’m working on at my farm. I just pulled in and noticed you sitting in there, staring out the windshield, and wondered if you’d like to see the rest of the property.”
“Oh!” she said, surprised, but pleasantly so. “Well, thank you, that’s very kind of you. But I’ve seen the mill, if that’s what you mean.”
He shook his head. “There’s more to the property than just the building.”
“There is?” She looked down at the envelope. There had been a surveyor’s plat map included with the papers, but she hadn’t really looked at it. Accord
ing to the magistrate, the surrounding property that came with the mill inheritance was all undeveloped.
She looked back to the mill, to the enormous iron waterwheel. Her gaze shifted to the thundering rush of Big Stone Creek as it tumbled over the boulder ledge, then to the thick forest that encroached on the open area around the mill, then up to the craggy gray stone edifice of Hawk’s Nest Ridge, which soared above it in the background. The whole of it tugged at her somewhere deep inside. She attributed it to the pull of nature, to her natural-born desire to dig in the dirt, to her education and training.
“I—” Want to, she realized, but didn’t say it out loud. She looked down at herself, then glanced out at the sun, which was brushing the tops of the towering pines as it continued its descent toward the skyline. The cool nip in the mountain air was becoming more pronounced and she hadn’t brought anything heavier to wear. Not to mention, her sensible pumps weren’t exactly designed for hiking. “—appreciate the offer. I do. But I’m not exactly dressed for a stroll through the woods, and it’s getting late. I still have to drive back to the city.”
He frowned. “You’re leaving? You just got here.”
“I have to go to work in the morning.” Despite her inner disquiet, she found herself smiling up at him. His easy, cheerful manner and puppy dog enthusiasm made it almost impossible not to. Plus, stout beard notwithstanding, he was not at all hard on the eyes. What’s in the water up here, anyway? “I work in D.C.,” she explained. “It would be a bit of a commute from here.”
“True that,” he said, seeming to take her rejection in stride.
Something told her he didn’t let much bother him, but she suspected he wasn’t as much of an easy-come-easy-go kind of guy as he might like to put on. Sawyer emanated a kind of throttled intensity all the time, but she imagined there was more to Seth Brogan than met the eye.
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